EBook Awards Now Accepting Entries

EPIC's eBook Awards Competition is now accepting entries. Since 2000, the 
eBook Awards Competition (formerly the EPPIE Awards) has recognized the 
very best of ePublished works in all genres of fiction, non-fiction, and 
poetry. The longest running competition of its kind, the eBook Awards 
Competition continues this tradition. To view the rules and enter, visit 
https://epicorg.com/competitions/epic-s-ebook-competition/epic-s-ebook-competition-rules.html 
. 

Also, EPIC’s Ariana eBook Cover Art Competition is accepting cover entries. 
For information visit 
https://www.epicorg.com/competitions/ariana-ebook-cover-art-competition/ariana-ebook-cover-art-competition-rules.html 
today! 

Please share and thank you for helping us spread the word. #EPICOrg 


Posted with permission by
Rowena Cherry

Some useful links from this week

The USPTO has been discussing "orphan" works, or “Facilitating the Development of the Online Licensing Environment for Copyrighted Works.” 

There are already ways for would-be exploiters of copyrighted works to locate and seek permission from rights holders, but Google and others would rather enjoy an "opt-out" system where authors' and songwriters' must proactively search out every would-be exploiter and actively opt out of being exploited.

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2015/04/finding-authors-importance-of.html

I resorted to Wikipedia for this (below), having seen a news item about a new interactive gaming app that appears to exploit the likeness and final hours of a young man who died in a manner that made national headlines.

The discussion by Cyberguy did not clarify whether the bereaved family sold the rights, or whether they are being ripped off. 

Wikipedia:

The right of publicity, often called personality rights, is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal aspects of one's identity. It is generally considered a property right as opposed to a personal right, and as such, the validity of the right of publicity can survive the death of the individual (to varying degrees depending on the jurisdiction).

Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights: the right of publicity, or to keep one's image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar to the use of a trademark; and the right to privacy, or the right to be left alone and not have one's personality represented publicly without permission. In common law jurisdictions, publicity rights fall into the realm of the tort of passing off. United States jurisprudence has substantially extended this right.

A commonly cited justification for this doctrine, from a policy standpoint, is the notion of natural rights and the idea that every individual should have a right to control how, if at all, his or her "persona" is commercialized by third parties. Usually, the motivation to engage in such commercialization is to help propel sales or visibility for a product or service, which usually amounts to some form of commercial speech (which in turn receives the lowest level of judicial scrutiny).

IMHO, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, and other genre authors should beware of assuming that just because a game app developer does something, it is safe and above board to emulate. It may not be. Rights may be involved. Permissions and contracts may be necessary.

On the other hand, there was an interesting article in an Authors Guild newsletter last year about the difficulties in copyrighting aspects of historical fiction where different authors relied on the documented life of a real historical person, that is, when one accuses the other of plagiarism for using identical historical details and events.

As a bit of a copyright enthusiast (you noticed?) I am silently cheering The Turtles for their sterling work in going after exploiters of their copyrighted musical works. 

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bbe7f946-023f-4249-8609-400add5aaf2e&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Federal+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-04-22&utm_term=

What I do not understand is why there isn't a class action suit involving all my favorite musicians and bands (living and deceased) from the 1950's, 1960's, and early 1970's who have not been paid any royalties at all by various subscription services. 

Big tech has taught us all to call copyrighted works "content"....  as www.TheTrichordist.com puts it, it is not so much "the internet of things" as "the internet of other people's things."

Excellent quote from The Trichordist on copyright (where the British Green Party allegedly proposes to cut copyright protection to just 14 years, and redistribute authors', musicians', movie makers', photographers' and others' rights to Google:

Ask yourself this: Exactly how does technology make it any less expensive to write a novel?   Writing a novel is purely a work of intellectual labor.  I suppose it’s easier to spell check…,  the backspace key is more convenient than White-out™ and a brush…  But I’m not seeing any evidence it’s less expensive.   In fact I would argue that since the modern English author lives in a much richer society than Dickens, that the relative cost of his labor is much much higher. 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Where the UFOs are

I am thrilled to announce that Preditors and Editors has awarded my site the Author's Site Of Excellence Award.

Needless to say, I am thrilled, and would like to thank anyone who had anything to do with this great honor!


Now, for the UFOs....


It makes sense to me that different aliens would use different methods to land on Earth, which is why I love to watch The Discovery Channel and also The Science Channel.

In my next alien romance (KNIGHT'S FORK) I have an Imperial war-star, or rather, one or two of its foray shuttles; a Saurian craft; and a Volnoth "stargoer" ... all with pressing, secret business on our planet.

The Volnoth vessel uses electro-magnetic propulsion, and uses large, deep oceans as inconspicuous runways.


EXCERPT FROM KNIGHT'S FORK (approx Sept 2008)


North London
Hampstead High Street
Two weeks later


“Read all abaaaht it!” a boy of papers shouted by a strange, half-tented cart from which passers-by could exchange very small pieces of folded paper for very large, folded stacks of dirty paper, which they would then unfold, and look at.

Prince Thor-quentin was fascinated. He loitered to observe the folly of mankind. His attention was captivated by more efficiently folded papers. They were colored, and wrapped in a clear foil to stop them flipping in the London street wind. Many of these colored papers showed bare-chested males, proudly displaying their favorite exercise equipment, or modest females in heat, bending over conveniently placed vehicles.

The boy of papers varied his cries of what was interesting.

“Antipodean Alarm!” he wailed. “Australian Air Force Authorities allay anxiety over alleged alien…”

So many big A-words! Thor-quentin thought.

Then, he caught sight of the grainy, blurry, black-and-white photograph. The boy of papers might call the object diving into the sea a “twisted, distorted weather balloon”, but Prince Thor-quentin knew it for what it was. A Volnoth, water-capable shuttle.

He had practiced Djinncraft before on impressionable, sacrificial virgins. He’d never imagined that he’d use Djinncraft to obtain something as worthless as a pile of dirty papers.

Approaching the boy of papers at a suitable lull in the boy’s passing trade, Thor-quentin murmured, ‘I will take. You will not cry out.”

The boy of papers promptly turned aside, folded from the mid-section and vomited into the slightly lower level of the trafficway.

Slack damn! Less force is required in this lesser gravity, Thor-quentin noted. He helped himself to a selection of the folded stacks of papers, and passed a hand over the wad of small, purplish papers, as if he might be making a fair exchage like everyone else. In addition, since he could, he took one catalogue of the local females in heat.

Viz-Igerd had come after him. He needed a better place to hide.

***

’Rhett was returning on the Underground from St. Catherine’s House, where he’d been looking up the births of girl babies in Cambridge in 1962, whether born, admitted, abandoned, or given up for adoption.

The tomes had been huge, and the print had been large, but the keeping of the “Creed Registers” had only resumed in 1962, and it was hard to know whether or not the books were complete.

He knew that Freya had been admitted to Addenbrookes on Trumpington Street. He was not sure of the date, and since she had been presumed indigent and had no name when admitted –or when discharged-- it was hard to be sure.

Because the mother had no name, the baby, which was officially admitted upon birth, also had no name.

Hopeless!

A copy of The Sun newspaper lay abandoned on the seat beside him. He glanced at it. The headline, “Antipodean Alarm!” did not alarm him. The accompanying photograph did.

“Damnation!” he murmured, recognizing the aerodynamic, aggressive-squid contours of a Star-goer with electro-magnetic propulsion systems, capable of using oceans as an underwater runway to achieve supersonic speed and necessary velocity to escape the planet’s gravity when it left. “That looks Volnoth!”


Best wishes for a very happy Easter!
Rowena Cherry

Plot, character, or something else?

Have you heard it said that all speculative romances, science fiction romances, or alien romances are either plot driven or character driven? Sometimes, I think there is, or should be, a third category: "sex-driven"!

However, if "sex-driven" were to be officially as important as plot and character, I'd also want to include action-driven, idea-driven, world- driven... and life (and literature) would get complicated. Some will say "action" is "plot".

I always start with the character in every sense of the word "character". Personality, morals, virtues, flaws. Everything that happens to my hero --and to my heroine-- happens because of a decision they made, because of who they are and "where they come from".

Does that mean that a character-driven book is like a snowball? Or a comet? Mine don't move that fast, and there are a lot of layers of accumulated dirt rolled up in it, if that is the case, not to mention the other debris, grit, and star road-kill.

Research is like the shark's fin in the surf. You don't need to see the body of it to know whether or not it's there. I love Research, and I do way too much of it, and I have trouble burying it, and sometimes it reveals insuperable difficulties. If my heroine is trapped with an immensely attractive and eligible hunk on a desert island, she might want to look and smell good. This could be a challenge.

Here's a glimpse into my mind.

Take unsightly body hair. It's a Romance. It's a Fantasy. (It's Insufficient Mating Material!) Does she have to have that problem? Can it be ignored? Yes.... but... well, that depends. Let's look into this, because it could be a rich source of comedy or conflict.

What do people do? There's threading. It's a bit like using tweezers, but done with fast moving twisted thread. Hence the name. I could thread my legs, but not my armpits. We can rule out solvents, creams, bleaches, chemical reactions. What is wax made of? Could one raid a wild beehive for the beeswax? Would it work? Would it be worth trying? Would mud do just as well? I think I heard that the Egyptians used mud. I also read somewhere that they used crocodile dung as a contraceptive sponge. (No! Not in a Romance, pause to roll on the floor at the thought of my editor's face.)

OK. Off to some beach to try the proverbial "razor" shell for myself. Maybe it would have been quicker, less painful, and altogether less scabby if I've visited snopes.

Are there people whom nature blessed with naturally smooth legs? Yes. OK. We will gloss over what is going on in her armpits, and bless her legs. Next...?

Broken jaws are quite a challenge. I talked to a lot of nay sayers who said I couldn't possibly write a Romantic hero with a broken jaw because of all the problems, and what it would do to his appearance (short term) and the dire problem if he were to break it a second time.

Cool. The hero has a strong motivation not to be a gentleman if the heroine has a penchant for slapping faces at the drop of a slur.

Wicked. The heroine is expecting a long haired, tanned, muscular, gorgeous hunk to swagger up the aisle on her royal shotgun wedding day. How will she react when some bald, starved, pale, weedy guy limps towards her? He looks like he's been starved and torturing into marrying her!

So, she refuses to marry him. Duh! That doesn't make them any less embarrassing and inconvenient. Royal "face" has been lost all round. So they have to be marooned somewhere until they go with the flow. Shall we give them all the mod cons? I think not. No buried cache of smugglers' rum. No fully loaded airplane full of supplies. Life is not a picnic!

Shoot them down in the sea. Wet her one and only dress. Make it shrink so she can't get out of it without help. Have it rain to keep her dress wet. Do like Mythbusters and the story of the shrinking jeans. Get in a cold bath in a tight dress, and discover the difficulties of undressing afterwards.

And then, there's the "Survivorman" stuff of day-to-day living... (If you have very good eyes, you can see that Survivorman, Les Stroud gave me the cover quote on Insufficient Mating Material). And that's not all by a long shot.

I haven't begun (in this particular blog) to get serious about the twin paradox, collapsing wormholes, unstable systems, scram jets, and governmental red tape.

Research can snowball, and I haven't even scratched the surface.

Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material